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Outliers (Hardcover) by Malcolm Gladwell

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Cultural critic Malcolm Gladwell applies his best trend watching insights and peripatetic methodology to the big question of why some people achieve success and others do not. These Outliers, as he calls them--successful people who stand out from the rest of the crowd--may be business people, artists, athletes, entertainers, scientists, or work in other fields. In a variation of the nature versus nurture debates, Gladwell seeks answers in culture, environment, and upbringing. Without seeking simple formulas, he examines a range of artifacts--IQ tests, for example, and birth-date data--as he digs for answers in a book that draws on psychology, business, and sociology, and which explains difficult concepts in an accessible manner. THE OUTLIERS confirms that Malcolm Gladwell, here a public intellectual, is himself an Outlier.

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In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

Brilliant and entertaining, OUTLIERS is a landmark work that will simultaneously delight and illuminate.